The BioDigital Human is a three-dimensional, fully interactive visualization program. While it won’t completely replace old-fashioned dissection, its users can explore a human body in ways not possible with a cadaver, much less a medical atlas.

With traditional anatomy atlases, “you’re at the mercy of what they’ve created for you. Here, you can manipulate it yourself,” said New York University anatomy instructor Victoria Harnik, who helped design the BioDigital Human.

Unlike cadavers, the digital body can be explored again and again. Real dissections are one-shot deals.

BioDigital tissues and organs are also labeled so users can see how they connect to other parts of the body. The zoomable, rotatable computer-animated human is also linked to educational resources, like MEDLINE, that have information about medical conditions associated with their object of interest.